Analysis of Dr. Hancock'' s Theory. 165 



*' Whence is that ? From this it follows, that to reason implies 

 superior intelligence and the power of attaining to the knowledge 

 of a First Cause, — or it implies a faculty which potentially includes 

 this knowledge : — hence the universality of human belief in a Su- 

 perior Power, — and hence, if brutes could reason at all, they also 

 would know and contemplate a First Cause — or a God ! — for if 

 they possessed the idiCxsMj potentially^ it would be developed «c- 

 tually^ as in the case of man ; — hence also it follows, conversely, 

 that if they understood human language, or any language that can 

 properly be considered a language, they would be men in na- 

 ture though beasts in form. It may thus be deduced, that what 

 are Moral and Rational Perceptions in Man, must be merely Na^ 

 iural or Instinctive Perceptions in the Brute : — and it would be 

 equally philosophical to suppose the Beaver saying to himself, " I 

 must build a house to live in, near the water, and lay up a store of 

 twigs," as to suppose the Dog to say to himself, '' I am going a 

 hunting to-day." In a word, if the ideas of brutes be the same in 

 kind with those of man, they must be embodied in a tacit but real 

 language, — a language as real as that of man himself. For it 

 appears certain that a creature capable of regarding an external 

 object^ and of saying, or what amounts to the same, of thinking 

 of such object — "that is," would also be capable of saying 

 or thinking further respecting such object — " that is hlue^'' or, 

 that is green ;" and the forms of language thus employed in tacit 

 thought being essential to such perceptions, their possessor must be 

 supposed capable of affixing signs to ideas ; and hence, if gifted 

 with the means of articulation, as some animals are, it requires no 

 stretch of the imagination to suppose him reasoning outright ; or 

 for example's sake, taking up, with a slight variation in language, 

 the theme of the disputants on the colours of the Chamaeleon, and 

 saying to a companion equally well versed in vocables 



I see it, Sir, as well as you, 

 And must again affirm it blue. 



And upon these principles, indeed, we might yield credence to the 

 story told by Locke, ^nd apparently believed by Prince Maurice, 



